Feeling the Heat
Whether it’s record
temperatures, rising seas, or disappearing rivers, the effects of climate
change are already being felt in a growing number of countries
By Patricia Smith |
February 29, 2016
ALSO...
LinberAnej lives in the Marshall Islands, a tiny nation in the
Pacific Ocean that’s slowly but surely being swallowed by the sea. Every day,
Anej joins a group of men and boys who wade into the water at low tide and
gather chunks of concrete and metal scraps to rebuild a seawall in front of his
home.
It’s a losing battle. The temporary barrier is no match for the
rising tides that regularly flood the shacks and muddy streets with salt water
and raw sewage.
“It’s insane, I know,” says Anej, 30, who lives with his family
of 13 in a four-room house. “But it’s the only option we’ve got.”
Standing near his house, he says, “I feel like we’re living
underwater.”
Thanks to climate change, it may not be long before the Marshall
Islands are literally underwater, most scientists agree. That’s because the rise
in Earth’s temperature causes a host of side effects, including flooding from
rising seas, severe drought, and more destructive weather in general.
With low-lying nations like the Marshall Islands already feeling
the effects of climate change on a daily basis, the world has started to take
action after many years of delays. In December, the U.S. and 194 other nations
agreed to a landmark accord (see box, below) that commits them
to lowering the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are heating up the
planet. The goal is to try to prevent the worst effects of climate change from
happening.
Those effects are already evident around the world (see
map, below), according to scientists. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels have
forced millions to leave coastal villages along the Bay of Bengal. In Mali, an
impoverished African country, drought is making farming increasingly difficult.
And in the northwestern U.S., the Pacific Ocean is encroaching upon lands the
Quinault Indian Nation has lived on for thousands of years.
In January, weather researchers confirmed that 2015 was the
hottest year worldwide since record keeping began in the 19th century,
eclipsing 2014, which previously held the record. The vast majority of
scientists say human activities are to blame.
Despite accumulating evidence, however, there’s still widespread
skepticism in the U.S. about whether climate change is real. About a third of
Americans say it isn’t a serious threat, and many Republican lawmakers are
skeptical.
‘Evidence Is Overwhelming’
But 97 percent of climate scientists say the problem is urgent,
according to a 2014 report by the world’s largest scientific organization,
which warned that the world was running out of time to deal with climate
change.
“The evidence is overwhelming: Levels of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere are rising,” said the report, by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. “Temperatures are going up. Springs are arriving
earlier. Ice sheets are melting. Sea level is rising. The patterns of rainfall
and drought are changing. Heat waves are getting worse.”
How did we get into this situation? Scientists say the burning
of fossil fuels like oil and coal—mostly from cars and power plants—has caused
a buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.
There are other sources too: Cows raised for meat or dairy production, for
example, emit methane gas during digestion.
These invisible gases let sunlight through but prevent some of
the resulting heat from radiating back out to space. Because they behave
like the panes in a greenhouse, they’re called greenhouse gases, and their
influence on Earth’s temperature is called the greenhouse effect. The higher
the concentration of greenhouse gases, the warmer the planet gets.
Severe Weather
The level of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, is up 41
percent since the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century. If current
trends continue, it could double in a few decades. Already, the planet has
warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1800s.
That may not sound like much, but many scientists see links
between warmer global temperatures and more severe weather. For example, they
say the prolonged drought in California has been intensified by climate change.
And one of the most worrisome effects may be the melting of much of the Earth’s
ice in the polar regions, which is likely to raise sea levels and flood coastal
regions.
Ironically, some of the countries that have contributed the
least to the planet’s warming—because they’re poor and have fewer cars and
power plants—are among those suffering most from the effects.
In Mali, climate change has raised temperatures and sharply
reduced rainfall. With more than 80 percent of the population dependent on
agriculture for survival, the lack of rain seriously threatens food supplies.
“In Mali, we are facing droughts and a coming desertification;
we have a rainy season which went from a six-month duration to a month and a
half in just a few years,” says MaïgaSinaDamba, a former government minister.
“So climate change is a daily life issue for us.”
With an annual per capita income of $660 last year and more than
43 percent of its population living in poverty, Malians don’t have the tools to
adapt to their changing environment.
“I saw with my own eyes the River Niger vanish into the sands,
as the months went by,” says Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. The
Niger River is the third longest in Africa, and it supports 112 million people
in nine countries.
While Mali’s problem is not enough water, in the northwestern
U.S., the problem is too much water. The Quinault Indian Nation may abandon its
small village on the outer coast of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula because the
rising Pacific Ocean threatens to engulf it. For now, a seawall is protecting
the village, but a $60 million plan to move the entire village further inland
is being considered.
An Underwater Cemetery
The Marshall Islands faces a similar problem. Most of the
nation’s 1,000 or so islands, located in the North Pacific, near the equator,
are less than 6 feet above sea level—and few are more than a mile wide.
In the capital, Majuro, waves have overtaken a seaside cemetery;
about 10 rows of coffins and headstones have washed out to sea. People have
begun burying their dead in above-ground concrete tombs, but even those are now
threatened by rising waves. Farmers are also struggling with salt water soaking
their fields and killing their crops.
If climate change causes sea levels to rise further, islanders
who today experience deluges of tidal flooding once every month or two could
see their homes unfit for human habitation within decades.
Displacing 18 Million?
In terms of global impact, the situation in Bangladesh is even
more dire. Climate change there could make millions homeless in one of the
world’s most turbulent regions. By 2050, 17 percent of its land could be
inundated, displacing about 18 million people, according to
scientists’ projections, and creating a potential security threat.
“There are a lot of places in the world at risk from rising sea
levels, but Bangladesh is at the top of everybody’s list,” says Rafael Reuveny,
an environmental affairs professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. “And
the world is not ready to cope with the problems.”
Bangladeshis have already started moving away from the
lowest-lying villages in the river deltas of the Bay of Bengal. Rising tides
are a big factor. Surveys indicate that as many as 1.5 million of the 5 million
slum inhabitants in Dhaka, the capital, moved there from villages near the Bay
of Bengal.
John Pethick, a former professor at Newcastle University in
England, analyzed decades of tidal records and found that high tides in
Bangladesh are rising 10 times faster than the global average. He predicts that
seas in Bangladesh could rise as much as 13 feet by 2100, four times the global
average.
Tariq Karim, Bangladesh’s ambassador to India, estimates that as
many as 50 million people could flee the country by 2050 if sea levels rise as
expected.
“We need a regional and, better yet, a global solution,” Karim
says. “And if we don’t get one soon, the Bangladeshi people will soon become
the world’s problem, because we will not be able to keep them.”
But many climate change experts fear time for action may be
running out. Bill McKibben, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont and a
climate activist, is alarmed by rising average temperatures. If the Earth gets too
hot, there may be a point of no return when it comes to preventing the worst
effects on humans.
“We’re living through history,” says McKibben, “and not the good
kind.”
